The Victory tax... cover art

The Victory tax...

The Victory tax...

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Summary
 VICTORY — THE TAX THAT DISAPPEARED, BUT LEFT THE MACHINE BEHINDHow do you defeat a government machine when you refuse to examine the people who built it?For decades, the tax-honesty and freedom movements have recycled the same arguments about words, definitions, statutes, and jurisdiction. There have been courageous individuals, but courage without an effective strategy has produced precious little institutional change.The dinosaurs of these movements must either change their tactics or make room for fresh ideas, new voices, and a fundamentally different approach.We must examine the human beings behind the expansion of federal power: the judges who ignored constitutional boundaries, the legislators who enlarged governmental without authority, and the executive officials who aggrandized the government into an immense enforcement apparatus.We must understand their ambitions, presumptions, institutional interests, and the circumstances they exploited.That is precisely what the Liberty Dialogues Victory Series undertakes.A telling observation:In 1939, only about 5% of American workers paid federal income taxes. By 1945, approximately 90% were filing returns, and 60% were paying income taxes.How did that happen?The Victory Series has traced the federal government’s claimed authority to tax the ordinary earnings of private Americans back through the founding of the Republic. Our examination challenges the failure to establish an original constitutional delegation for that general exaction.Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court’s decisions, particularly during the 1930s, supplied the judicial framework upon which Congress and the executive branch proceeded.President Franklin Roosevelt, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr., and specific congressional leaders then expanded the machinery.And in 1942, Congress enacted the extraordinary Victory Tax.It reached millions of lower-income Americans who had previously escaped regular federal income-tax liability.But there was another objective.On November 24, 1943, Congressman Wilbur Mills explained that the Victory Tax provided experience with employer withholding that could subsequently be extended to the regular income tax.The machinery’s future application was contemplated from the beginning.The Current Tax Payment Act of 1943 made widespread withholding a permanent feature of federal income-tax administration.Private employers were compelled to become unpaid federal tax-collection intermediaries—deducting taxes from their workers’ earnings, keeping records, and delivering the money to Treasury.Meanwhile, the government used patriotic persuasion, including Disney’s Donald Duck film The New Spirit, to portray compliance as willing participation in defending America. I deem this a psychological operation campaign.Then came another extraordinary revelation.The Senate Finance Committee expressly sought to retain approximately 11 million Americans who had been subject only to the Victory Tax. It even rejected a Treasury proposal that would have relieved approximately nine million people of income-tax liability.In 1944, Congress repealed the temporary Victory Tax.But the collection machine survived.And the government continued operating through the system that wartime legislation had helped establish.Consider the implications.The judiciary supplied only judicial precedent. Congress expanded the statutory reach. The executive branch built the enforcement apparatus.But the accumulated actions of three branches of government cannot manufacture a constitutional power that was never delegated.This is why we must move beyond the tired arguments of the freedom movement.We must expose the historical decisions, identify the individuals responsible, defeat unsupported presumptions, and pursue meaningful remedies.That is the mission of LibertyDialogues.com, working alongside ConstitutionalCounty.org to promote constitutional accountability beginning at the local level.And the work is not confined to books or videos. Students of the Liberty Dialogues System are reporting victories in courts and before government agencies around the globe.The objective is not to argue endlessly about freedom. It is to exercise our rights, challenge unlawful assertions of authority, and obtain results.Visit TheyNeverHadIt.com. Examine the historical evidence. Study the Liberty Dialogues System. Become involved through ConstitutionalCounty.org.And demand that every governmental assertion of authority be traced to its legitimate constitutional foundation.Government does not acquire constitutional authority simply by exercising power. And the American people will never restore their freedom until they demand that every exercise of governmental power be justified under the Constitution. Get full access to YesToHellWith at yestohellwith.substack.com/subscribe
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